On this day, 11 September 1946, the Abbey Lodge block of flats in Regents Park, London, was squatted by homeless families of ex-servicemen. Police cordoned off the building, and refused to allow more than 25 blankets to be brought in for the children. This outraged a crowd of demonstrators outside who then lay down in the road, backing up traffic for a quarter of a mile until eventually police relented and allowed food and blankets into the property. The following night, with the blockade resumed, mounted police dispersed crowds outside the building. It was part of a wave of similar occupations in the wake of World War II, and elsewhere in the city the Ivanhoe Hotel in Bloomsbury was also taken over.
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